Hotel Highlights

Intimate atmosphere and attentive staff

Imaginative and quirky design

Sublime sea views

Overview

With the air of a private villa owned by some devastatingly stylish doyen of design, Perantzada Hotel is a haven of laid-back luxury. Perched above the harbour town of Vathi, the former neoclassical naval college has been transformed into a peaceful boutique retreat where the elegantly old blends seamlessly with the strikingly new. The imaginative and quirk-filled interiors mix gleaming white with pops of candy colour; outside, the sleek infinity pool seems to float above the shimmering sea below.

At the hotel

Our favourite rooms

We love Bluebell, a junior suite with a private terrace offering uninterrupted views of the sea. Located in the hotel’s modern extension, it features iconic furniture such as an Eames rocking chair and a pebble-shaped coffee table. The multi-level bathroom has sleek glass walls, a sunken bath and a walk-in monsoon shower. If you’re looking for more traditional surroundings, try one of the romance-inspired rooms in the old building. Boasting names such as the Secret Room and the Fairy Tale, they have muslin-draped four poster beds, beamed ceilings and lines of Greek poetry inscribed on the walls.

Poolside

The stone-lined, glass-edged infinity pool is surrounded by inviting loungers and looks out over the harbour.

Packing tips

Take a pair of Grecian sandals to navigate Ithaca’s many hills in classical and comfortable style. A copy of Homer’s Odyssey will help you brush up the island’s mythical past while lounging by the pool.

Also

Three-night minimum stay. Smoking is only permitted outside. Transfers to the hotel leave from Sámi twice daily (3.15pm and 11.15pm, with an extra ferry at 3pm in high season). Private transfers with the hotel outside these times cost €150 each way.

Children

All ages welcome. Cots are provided free and additional beds can be arranged for an additional 20 per cent of the room rate. Book babysitting a day in advance for €15 an hour. The swimming pool has a shallow end.

Food & Drink

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Hotel Restaurant

No restaurant, but breakfast is a sumptuous affair involving home-baked pastries, fresh juices and platters of local cheese served in the inventively designed lounge, complete with 1960s plastic chairs, cup-and-saucer wall lights, antique rugs and pictures of Ithaca in days gone by.

Hotel Bar

The poolside bar serves drinks, snacks and light meals during the day. There is no bar available in the evening.

Last orders

Breakfast is served from 9am to 11am. The bar dries up at the end of the day.

Room service

No food is served during the evening, but you can enjoy in-room breakfast and light daytime meals.

Smith Insider

Dress code

Laid-back linens and plenty of cool, crisp white to complement the airy interiors.

Top table

Take breakfast amid flower-filled pots on the terrace for the knockout views.

Local Guide

Worth getting out of bed for

Take a short drive through Ithaca’s olive groves and cypress-covered hills and you’ll come across the ruins of the ancient city of Alalkomenes and the preserved mountain village of Exogi, said to be one of the oldest settlements on the island. If you prefer to explore Ithaca from the water, you can hire a boat for €55 a day from the Captain Yiannis Hotel (+30 69458 07913).

Back in Vathi, explore the small boutiques lining the town’s cobbled streets (the island is particularly good for unusual hand-crafted jewellery) or wander along the two paths leading from the town to the ancient Fountain of Arethusaand the enormous Cave of Nymphs, where Odysseus is said to have hidden treasure.

Local restaurants

Smart, stylish Liberty (+30 26740 32561) overlooks Vathi’s port. The decor has a subtle nautical theme and the menu features light Greek meals. On warm evenings, nab one of the two stone booths on the terrace. Paliocaravo (+30 26740 32573) is a family-run portside taverna with a big outdoor terrace where you can feast on fresh fish and lobster.

Local bars

Soulatso Coffee Music Bar ((+30 2674 32183) in Vathi serves a range of light meals, cakes, pastries and drinks accompanied by a wide-ranging music selection, including the occasional live performance.

Perantzada Hotel

Odyssea Androutsou Str., Vathy, Ithaca, 28300

Planes

There is no airport on Ithaca, so you’ll need to fly to neighbouring Kefalonia. There are direct flights from London Gatwick and various regional airports in the UK with Monarch (www.monarch.co.uk) and Thomson (http://flights.thomson.co.uk). If you’re arriving from elsewhere, you’ll probably have to fly to Athens and catch a domestic flight to Kefalonia with Aegean Airlines (www.aegeanair.com) or Olympic Air (www.olympicair.com). From Kefalonia airport, it’s less than an hour's drive/taxi ride to the port, then a 30-minute ferry hop to Vathi.

Automobiles

It’s possible to hire a car on Ithaca, but if you want some wheels it’s easier to pick them up on Kefalonia, and take the ferry across. There is an Avis rental desk at the airport (www.avis.com).

Other

If you’re island-hopping around Greece there are car and passenger ferry services to Vathi from Kefalonia, Patra, Astakos (near Athens) and Lefkada. If you don’t want to share a deck with anyone else, you can charter the hotel’s private speedboat for €150, one-way.

Reviews

Anonymous review

In somewhere as small as Vathi, you might not expect it to be difficult to find the only boutique hotel in town. But so far we’ve been back and forth along its little harbour twice – and nix. It hasn’t been a tiring trip to get this far – we’ve come to Ithaca from neighbouring Kefalonia where we’ve been staying at the Perantzada’s big brother, the Emelisse…

Perantzada Hotel

Anonymous review by Emily Kerrigan, Foodie reporter

In somewhere as small as Vathi, you might not expect it to be difficult to find the only boutique hotel in town. But so far we’ve been back and forth along its little harbour twice – and nix. It hasn’t been a tiring trip to get this far – we’ve come to Ithaca from neighbouring Kefalonia where we’ve been staying at the Perantzada’s big brother, the Emelisse. All the same, if we don’t solve the puzzle of the Perantzada’s whereabouts soon, one of two things will explode – Mr Smith’s temper or worse, Baby Smith's. Neither will be pretty, so it’s a great relief when we finally track down our destined Greek Island hideaway.

Inaccessible by car, Perantzada Hotel is hidden down a little alleyway that leads to a topsy-turvy flight of stairs and a metal gate. (For the record, it’s the blue-fronted villa set back from the waterfront at the far end of the bay and when you do strike gold, the sign telling you you’re in the right place isn’t exactly large, but one senses this is more about being unflashy than unhelpful.)

A swing through the gate and we’re in a beautifully decorated, nautically themed little courtyard. Seaside blues and whites dominate while pots of cheerful geraniums lead the eye up more stairs past little model boats to reception. Wth just 17 rooms, the Perantzada is more intimate in form and in feel than the Emelisse. It’s the kind of place where you’re on instant first-name terms with the staff (Steve is front-of-house, Fotini’s a whizz in the kitchen). And boy, did someone have fun styling this place…

What started out as an already elegant 19th-century mansion has been enhanced with carefully judged 21st-century touches. So you’ll find quirky modern art nestled among the mansion’s period balconies and traditional wooden staircases alongside ultramodern glass ones. It may sound jarring, but it works. Most of the hotel is decked out in classic white but now again there are vivid splashes of colour in a bright red tablecloth here, a shocking pink neon uplight there. The overall effect is mishmashily eclectic but in no way overstyled in the way a modern art gallery might be in a flashy seaside villa.

Central to the Perantzada is its breezy breakfast room where antique dressers and chunky Sixties’ plastic tables continue the old/new juxtaposition. There are copies of Vogue for leafing through, but we’re straight out to gawp at the sun-drenched infinity pool, framed by vast French windows. Upstairs, we get a surprise. It’s beautifully airy and we soon twig why – the corridor to our room is carved into exposed rock and open to the elements, so looking up, we glimpse blue sky.

Like the Emelisse, all rooms here come with king-size doubles draped in designer linen and lots of upscale goodies such as iPod docks and Korres cosmetics. The added thrill of the Perantzada, though, is that each boudoir has a different look and feel, boasting high-end contemporary design from the likes of Philippe Starck. In this big-name design lottery we get Eames, specifically Eames iconic plastic armchairs and an industrial-chic interior (concrete floors, angular furniture and a vast white flatscreen that looks for all the world like a giant iMac) that wouldn’t look out of place at the HQ of a Soho advertising agency. Mr Smith groans – it feels like being back at work. That is until we draw back the shutters to reveal views of the shore from our private balcony. Beyond uniform terracotta roofs, Vathi’s sparkling bay hosts the odd chugging sailboat but there’s nothing more to shatter the silence. We couldn’t ask for a more peaceful location.

Nor could we ask for a friendlier welcome. It’s spring, so the hotel isn’t yet full but even in peak season, one suspects, the service would be every bit as personal. Once we’re installed by the pool, Steve is straight out offering to fix us a snack – à la carte, or off-menu – using whatever we might fancy from his fridge. I plump for a simple Greek salad and I swear it’s the freshest I’ve ever tasted – something to do with the context perhaps. Bottles of complimentary chilled wine are delivered discretely to our room – a little gesture to make us feel at home. At one point, Steve apologises that he has to pop out, leaving us the run of the place. It’s that kind of trusting, generous, mi casa es su casa kind of place. And it goes without saying that little Baby Smith is treated like one of the family.

More adventurous types may opt to explore one of several walking tracks in Ithaca’s verdant hills, but I’m afraid, what with the bambino, we don’t make it much further than nearby Filatro beach. And why would we? Much like the Perantzada, Fliatro is small but perfectly formed, a little shingle beach backed by shady trees and lapped by turquoise water. Apart from the odd snorkeler, we’ve the place to ourselves. Where to eat? For lunch, try Vitha’s trendy waterfront ouzerie Pinakothiki, where mezedes of dolmades or deep-fried, almost tempura-like, aubergine are perfectly portioned (ask Fotini for directions as the sign’s in Greek). By night we like Nicos, just off the square, for pita gyros and people-watching.

And it’s at night that the Perantzada really comes alive. Returning after dinner, the floodlit mansion is accented by different colours from each room so that bright blues and reds shine from alternate windows. In summer, Fotini runs magical-sounding supperclubs, here overlooking the lantern-lit pool. Judging by the addictive homemade cakes that form part of her breakfast spread, these might be worth a return trip alone. And there willbe a return we concur as we give Baby Smith one last dip in the Perantzada’s pool. After all, his mum and dad know where to find it now.

The Guestbook

Whenever you book a stay at a Smith hotel with us, we'll invite you to review it when you get back. Read what other Smith members had to say in Perantzada Hotel's Guestbook below.

Stephanie

BlackSmith

Stayed on
1 Oct 2014

We loved

The hotel staff is wonderful. They were so helpful and nice. The beds are very comfortable and hot nice showers. The view and location was fabulous and the breakfast was yummy. I will be back to stay here again.

Don’t expect

If you are not in good physical condition to hike stairs this would not be a good location to stay.

Rating:
9/10 stars

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